Sad-making

The term ‘sad-making’ doesn’t exist in the Oxford American Dictionary (widget). But according to the (online) Urban Dictionary, you can add any emotion-word to “-making” to describe something that makes you feel a certain way.

It was peculiar to hear/read the word “sad-making” three times today. Have I heard of this word before and never took notice? If I never took notice, then why today, and why more than once? Did “sad-making” have any connection or reference to how I was feeling, because you-know-what-they-say, people tend to notice certain things more keenly if they happen to be in that particular mood?

The first encounter occurred while reading Never Let Me Go, a Japanese author narrating a British story. I didn’t think much of it at first because I thought it was one of those “British” sayings, like “Bees’s Knees” which means “the best,” and “Bob’s your uncle” which means “there you have it,” and oh, another funny one like “yonks” which means “a long time.” The British are so weird… (yet so enchanting). (hehe).

The second encounter occurred while standing in line at Panera Bread. The workers were talking about something and the soup lady said something that included, “…well that’s a lot of sad-making.” And I stood there kind of puzzled to hear it spoken by Americans.

Then my last encounter happened just now, browsing through my Tumblr dashboard — an assortment of visual inspirations — and Bob’s your uncle! a quote by J.D. Salinger from the short novel called Franny & Zooey: “It’s everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so — I don’t know — not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and — sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much only in a different way.” What in the world~

So I guess these encounters might point to myself being conscious of the term being used because maybe I’m feeling blue?